Archives For patisserie

Whenever I’m in Cammeray I have to pop in to Victoire (they’re also in Rozelle) to pick out at least one delightful treasure to take home. Today I made a special trip to buy la galette des Rois.

In France, as in many other countries, there is a special cake associated with the Epiphany festival (January 6) (La Fête des Rois), called “la galette des Rois”. It marks the visit of the wise men to the infant Jesus in the manger. The galette is traditionally sold for the few days before and after Epiphany.

The galette is round, made with puff pastry, filled with frangipane, a butter-rich, smooth mixture of crème d’amande (almond cream) and crème pâtissière (pastry cream).

Inside the galette is a small figurine, known as la fève, and whoever gets it in their piece of galette is “king” or “queen” for the day. The little figurines are often collectables. There’s even a museum in Blain with a collection of les fèves. Last year in Paris, one patisserie included a 2000 Euro diamond in one of the galettes as the fève.

Traditionally the galette was cut into the same number of pieces as people in the gathering, plus one “for the poor” or “for the share of God”. To ensure that the piece with the fève was distributed fairly, the youngest at the gathering would hide under the table, then as each piece is cut, the child would yell out who would receive that piece.

The galettes, on sale in boulangeries and pâtisseries, usually come with a cardboard crown for crowning the king or queen for the day. It is said that it is the responsibility of the king or queen to buy the galette the following year.

In Paris you can also buy some variations on the galette, such as with caramel, raspberries, orange or chocolate.

Victoire produces a regular-sized galette which is about a foot across, and a smaller one, which is more like about 4 inches in diameter. In the photo above the top left photo shows the fève from the standard size (a bit hard to tell what it is in the photo: a shepherd with a sheep around his shoulders), and the top right shows the fève from the smaller version.

You can see how flaky the pastry is, how many layers there are, crisp on the outside, with the small layer of frangipane inside, just enough to give the flavour without being squeezed out as you eat it.

The photo below shows the crown given to the king / queen, sitting on top of the galette. Below that is the special paper bag provided for the galette, depicting les rois visiting Bethlehem.

The galette is light, and buttery, special anyway, but made more special with the tradition and stories which go with it, and because it’s available for such a small window of time each year.

More about Victoire

Victoire is a true French patissier / boulanger, making fresh each day a variety of rustic breads, croissants, quiches, and luscious little pastries. Because it’s fresh and they bake just what they think will sell, it’s always advisable to get there in the first half of the day to be sure you can find what you want to buy.

Details

Here are the details about Victoire in Cammeray at time of posting. Please call them for more current details.

Address

451 Miller St, Cammeray, NSW 2062

Phone

(02) 9929 3434

Where do you go to buy special dishes only available for short seasons like this? What’s your favourite seasonal food?

A few weeks ago I experienced a wonderful day out on a Gourmet Safari, the French, On Wheels, one.

I’ve enjoyed the list of foodie series on SBS TV with Maeve O’Meara, starting with Food Lovers’ Guide to Australia then Food Safari, then Italian Food Safari, and now French Food Safari (which has just started). Maeve has introduced us to the best of the international cuisines we can experience right here in Australia. And so when I heard about the Gourmet Safaris she organizes, I wanted to go on one of them.

In Sydney Gourmet Safaris has On Wheels Safaris, where you hop on a bus and are driven from place to place scattered over a distance; Walking Safaris, where you’re based in one location and explore on foot; Banquets and Cooking Classes. And then there are more Safaris, around Australia, and overseas to locations such as Greece and Vietnam.

A friend gave me a gift for my birthday an On Wheels Safari which travels on a bus around Sydney looking for some of the best French food places around the city. Here’s the description of the day from their web site:

We start with a coffee and explanation of what makes French pastry so exquisite and meet a master patissier who creates macarons of amazing flavour and beauty; we visit a kitchenware store that has many French gadgets and cookware classics and great cookbooks. We explore some luscious French cheeses, hand-made chocolates and enjoy lunch at a renowned bistro – with a glass of wine of course!

I’m not going to go in detail, or even list all of the places we went, because I hope you get to on the Gourmet Safari yourself, and it’s fun having a bit of a surprise to see where you end up! If this Safari was anything to go by, on the Safaris you get a chance to hear experts of the cuisine talk about their food passions, their food skills. Even if you discovered all of those places yourself, you wouldn’t get to meet the experts, or hear their stories.

Baroque

We hopped on the bus at Central about 8am, heading for breakfast. All we knew was that we were going to a patisserie. As we got closer to The Rocks, we found out we were going to go to Baroque Bistro / Bar / Patisserie. I had been to their patisserie La Renaissance, in Argyle St in the Rocks, but not to Baroque, so was excited to check it out. Coffee and croissants are one of my favourite breakfasts.

We had the place to ourselves the whole time we were there. Baroque were generous with their time, considering they also had to do all of the usual baking and preparations for lunch. The long table set with goodies for breakfast looked a picture, with the morning sunlight streaming in the windows.

Jean-Michel Raynaud (in the photo below, standing, with the microphone), patissier extraordinaire, talked about making the macarons there for both Baroque and La Renaissance. They sell an amazing number of macarons each day.

Jean-Michel was awarded top patissier prize in France in his early twenties, and worked in Michelin-starred restaurants in France. In Australia he has been head chef at Sweet Art and Planet Cake.

The other two people standing in the photo above are Maeve O’Meara at the left, and on the right in the white t-shirt is Christophe Charkos, one of the owners of Baroque, serving us coffee. I don’t know why I don’t have any photos of his brother Olivier, who was there, too. That’s silly.

The table looked gorgeous, with the plates of pastries for us to sample.

We tasted a butter croissant, a pastry with pistachios, a pain au chocolat, and a brioche. All so good.

Then we tasted the macarons (at the top of the post Maeve is serving us). Their current flavours are: chai (the white one with dark specks), chestnut and pear (the one that’s the speckled green and burgundy colours in this shot – looks much better in reality), salty caramel (Fleur de Sel de Guerande) (the caramel-coloured ones at the back of the plate), rosewater, and I think the last one was a lamington version of a macaron. There is also a truffle one at the moment (one of their seasonal macarons).

In the kitchen Jean-Michel described the macaron-making process. Here you can see the beautifully rounded macarons being sprinkled with cocoa before resting.

Mmmmmm… I’m hungry for macarons again seeing these photos again! And then here are some of the other delights Baroque offers:

We didn’t try any of those, so I have to get back there to do that!

Also there were some people there from The Wine & Truffle Co. in Manjimup, WA. They had just harvested the first of their Perigord truffles for the season. This is one of fresh truffles:

We sampled some of the truffle products, including truffle mustard, truffle honey, and truffle honey with hazelnuts. Heavenly. The truffle honey with hazelnuts would make a luscious component on a cheese-platter.

Also for the truffle season, Baroque are offering fresh truffle added to any of their dishes.

To give you a feel for the bistro menu here are some of the dishes they offer:

Update (Sep, 2011): Baroque has been selected by the Restaurant and Catering Association as winner of the Best French Restaurant category at the Sydney Metropolitan and Surrounds awards. Congratulations!

The rest of the Gourmet Safari

From Baroque we hopped on the bus, and continued our day exploring inner Sydney, looking for some of the best French food places.

We stopped off at one of the best kitchen supply places in Sydney, a chocolate shop making hand-made exquisite chocolates, a place which sells the most incredible charcuterie items, had lunch in a French bistro (including champagne and wines), and a cheese shop with a superb range of cheeses from around Europe. In each place we taste-tested the food, so we were eating almost all day!

I never cease to be amazed at how multicultural Sydney is, and how you can find authentic food from so many nationalities dotted around the city.

The guide for the Safari was Marie-Helene Clauson, originally from Aix en Provence, a food stylist, someone who loves food and cooking. She gave helpful tips and insights about French food along the way.

Maeve O’Meara was at several of the stops along the way, and was just as delightful and warm and effervescent in person as on her TV programs, making sure we were well looked after, teaching us about the food and techniques along the way.

One of the good thing about going on the bus Safari is that you can buy things as you go, and leave them on the bus on successive stops. Some people on my tour (who obviously knew what they were doing!) brought shopping bags and cooler bags with them, to stock up on supplies.

Another element of the Safari which I enjoyed was meeting the other people on the tour. It was interesting hearing stories about their adventures in travel and food. People had come from as far as Canberra and Tamworth and Newcastle for the day. Quite a few people on the tour had been on multiple Gourmet Safaris, and they keep on going back to the places discovered on the Safari.

This Gourmet Safari was a good day out, discovering new food places, learning more, and meeting some interesting people. Now I’m pondering which Safari to do next.

Details

Gourmet Safaris

Here are the details about Gourmet Safaris at time of posting. Please check their web site for more current details.